Supporters Concede Loss in Oregon GE Labeling Vote Recount

According to a news source, the organizations that supported an Oregon
ballot initiative that would have required foods made with genetically
engineered (GE) ingredients to be labeled as such have ended efforts to
challenge a vote that narrowly defeated the measure. The groups apparently
lost an emergency lawsuit seeking to include the ballots of some 4,600 voters
who were rejected because the signatures on the vote-by-mail return envelopes
did not match those on file. A court determined that the state’s rules
on matching signatures were neither unreasonable nor illegal. An automatic
recount had been triggered because the ballot proposal was defeated by
slightly more than 800 votes out of 1.5 million cast. Of the initial 13,000 ballots
with signature problems, 8,600 responded and matched their signatures. The
remaining 4,600 were rejected. See Associated Press, December 11, 2014.

Issue 548